Just Sold – Car Wash Redevelopment Site
I just completed the sale of 3144 Canton Road, Marietta, GA 30066. This property is a 1.3 acre site located in East Cobb County. The property is an older car wash with self serve bays and older automatic tunnels. I represented the seller, and sold the property to a developer that will be building a brand new automatic tunnel system car wash on the site beginning in early 2020. We achieved a strong sale price of $895,000, which equates to approximately $688,000/acre.
Automatic tunnel system car washes are extremely popular and development of this type of car wash is very active, not only in major cities but even in smaller towns. The business model differs from the older coin operated car washes. The newer automatic tunnel washes seek to build base of subscription customers that pay monthly for unlimited washes. The recurring revenue from subscriptions is more desirable and easier to manage than pay per use revenue of the older washes. Many older washes still produce great revenue, much of it in the form of cash and coins. But the businesses are not as hands-off as they may appear. Daily cleaning and maintenance is required. And collection of coins is not something that is easily delegated due to potential theft and losses. The new tunnel system car washes are operated with debit/credit payment systems, so the problem of cash collection doesn’t exist.
It appears that there is still life left in the older self serve car wash business model. Many of these older car washes can produce hundreds of thousands of dollars per year in revenue. But due to the hands-on nature of the business, they’re typically operated by local hands-on investor-operators, whereas many of the new automatic car washes are operated by brand name chains that manage multiple properties under one parent company.